The Edmonton Oilers Bottom Out

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I thought I'd post this article in response to all that is said here about this team being at rock bottom and how we should "just" rebuild. The Oilers are in year 8 of a rebuild. I'm not saying things are great in Jersey right now, I'm just saying it could be way worse.

Between missing the playoffs every year since they went to the Stanley Cup Final; finishing in the draft lottery in every season since 2009-10; a revolving door of coaches, goaltenders, and front office executives; a total inability to get anything even resembling an NHL defense onto the ice; and scoring woes despite a pile of guys who should be or are star forwards, one can't even begin to imagine what it's like to play for or support that team. It's an unceasing nightmare from which there is no waking, and in which every turn seems grislier than the last.

Fortunately — if you want to call it that — things may have finally reached their logical denouement on Saturday night, as the team crammed what felt like a full season's worth of mind-bendingly dour events into one 60-minute lack of effort that surely left small children and grown men alike across the city weeping uncontrollably.

A lot of people think a rebuild = two to three years of rough sailing automatically followed by several years of contention. Doesn't always work that way. When you point out an example like Edmonton, those same people will basically say, in one form or another, "Yeah, but that won't happen to us."

A true rebuild should just about always be a last resort...especially since, as we've seen, high draft picks in all sports go belly-up quite a bit. For every Sidney Crosby and Mario Lemieux, there's an Alexandre Daigle, or guys who go on to have solid "pretty good" careers, but not H-O-F worthy. No guarantee that years of high picks will get you to the promised land.

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There are certainly no guarantees in a rebuild, but any competently run franchise wouldn't be in the Oilers' position right now. There is a ton of talent there that is being misused.

Not really. The most difficult thing get in hockey is young talent, locked in at a good rate. Well, the Oilers got RNH, Hall and Eberle signed to good cap hits (though Eberle doesn't deserve the dough the former received) . If you look at the rest, their team is utter ****. Their bottom six is terrible, defense is a joke and they have shaky goaltending.

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Our defense is already rebuilt and if we sign Corey to an extension next year that's pretty much rebuilt too. The offense needs a little tweaking but they've been putting up a good amount of goals since the break. This team needs consistency more than anything.

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If the Oilers had any idea how defense worked, they'd be a lot better. But you couldn't build a worse defense if you tried. Petry's good, but other than that it's a garbage dump. They do have Nurse, Klefbom in the minors, but defenseman take forever/aren't nearly as much of a lock as forwards

Edited March 24, 2014 by DH26

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Our defense is already rebuilt and if we sign Corey to an extension next year that's pretty much rebuilt too. The offense needs a little tweaking but they've been putting up a good amount of goals since the break. This team needs consistency more than anything.

This is pretty much where I am. I don't think they need to be dramatic in the changes. There's a lot of underachieving this season.

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Not really. The most difficult thing get in hockey is young talent, locked in at a good rate. Well, the Oilers got RNH, Hall and Eberle signed to good cap hits (though Eberle doesn't deserve the dough the former received) . If you look at the rest, their team is utter ****. Their bottom six is terrible, defense is a joke and they have shaky goaltending.

There's more offensive talent in RNH, Hall, Eberle, Yakupov (in an organization that doesn't completely ruin him developmentally) and Gagner than most teams have in their entire forward roster. Sure, their bottom six looks weak right now, but you'd think a competent GM could bring in some solid veterans to guide the kids. Serviceable bottom-6 forwards aren't quite dime-a-dozen, but it's not like they'd struggle finding cheap options in free agency or even throughout the season. It's obviously easy to play armchair GM like I'm doing, but I mean..come on. You'd have to seriously fvck up to make a team as bad as the Oilers are right now.

Defensively they're lacking, for sure. Goaltending is also a mess, although I think eventually Scrivens will bring some stability.

My point is, I don't think people should point to the Oilers and say "Here, see! This is why you shouldn't rebuild!" because I could just as easily (and incorrectly) point to Colorado and say "See, only a few years of sh&#33;t hockey and you're back in action!". It's a crap shoot, but I trust in Lou and the new ownership and think the Devils could experience a shorter rebuild if they went into full-on tank mode. Although, now that I think about it I doubt Lou's in for a rebuild - he'd probably retire before taking on such a task.

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They made a big mistake firing Ralph Krueger. Absolutely no reason to fire a coach who coached a team to a 19-22-7 record in one 48-game season. That was Craig MacTavish's big power move when he came in, and it was pointless.

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They made a big mistake firing Ralph Krueger. Absolutely no reason to fire a coach who coached a team to a 19-22-7 record in one 48-game season. That was Craig MacTavish's big power move when he came in, and it was pointless.

if that was a big mistake, and it's looking like one now in hindsight, it's probably barely in the top 25 of things they've f'ed up the last 7 years

Edited March 24, 2014 by DH26

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Teams are way too fast to rebuild in the NHL. A rebuild could mean 25 years of failure. It's never worth the risk. Keep your team, add some pieces, stay afloat, draft well and even a bad team can turn it around.

People often have different definitions of what a 'rebuild' is. Is it trading away your star player Is there a certain number of players you have to trade? I think most people see it as the unloading a good chunk of your top 6 forwards and top 2 D-men. Doing this all at once is pointless - why tank yourself for years to come? Rebuild as you replace (over time), like most teams do a la NJ.

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My point is, I don't think people should point to the Oilers and say "Here, see! This is why you shouldn't rebuild!" because I could just as easily (and incorrectly) point to Colorado and say "See, only a few years of sh!t hockey and you're back in action!". It's a crap shoot, but I trust in Lou and the new ownership and think the Devils could experience a shorter rebuild if they went into full-on tank mode. Although, now that I think about it I doubt Lou's in for a rebuild - he'd probably retire before taking on such a task.

I wasn't pointing at the Oilers to say you shouldn't rebuild. I was pointing at them to say that strip-down rebuilding is no guarantee and that it's a large undertaking that isn't necessary for the Devils at this point. I think the Devils have been in a small rebuild for a couple of years now as it is.

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No rebuild as I understand that term, completely tear it down, a la Buffalo, is needed. There's a strong defense, a strong goalie that's entering the prime of his career, and three lines of at least decent forwards, and, despite what people say, a good coach.

Now, what could turn the Devils into more than just a bubble playoff team very quickly would be to have an anomolous awful year at the right time. That's what kind of happened last year with Tampa, and Nashville, and Colorado to a certain extent as they were an above .500 team the year before last. While Colorado and Tampa were never consistently good, they weren't Buffalo, Calgary or Florida consistently awful. Next year is that kind of year where it wouldn't be the end of world if the team was, shall we say, hit by the worst luck possible.

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In hockey, you build success from the the goal, out. Edmonton has done the opposite and they are still paying for it.

You most certainly don't do this, and the Red Wings and Blackhawks are testaments to not doing this. All a good goalie would've done is mask the Oilers' fundamental problems - they can't play defense and they can't score enough to make up for that.

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Our defense is already rebuilt and if we sign Corey to an extension next year that's pretty much rebuilt too. The offense needs a little tweaking but they've been putting up a good amount of goals since the break. This team needs consistency more than anything.

Agreed, we don't need a total rebuild. What we do need is a few seasons where the franchise is focused on drafting and development. I think the Devils still have room to keep guys like Elias and Jagr around because they are true professionals and the young guys can learn a lot from them. We should also still consider the playoffs a goal, just not at every expense like Lou sometimes has a habit of doing.

What the Devils can't do anymore is stuff like allowing the development of a young D man like Larsson to be stunted because we insist on playing a way past his prime vet. We can trade away young or future assets for returns that don't also have the future of the team in mind and we definitely can't let a marginal backup goalie dictate playing time over a guy expected to be a main part of our core moving forward. I don't mind some struggles as long as it's young guys taking their lumps, not vets like Sal, Bernier and Zid doing the same stupid sh&#33;t for the millionth time.

As for Edmonton, that is a total clusterfvck. If the tantrum Eakins threw on the bench about being sprayed with a little water on Saturday wasn't silly enough, he actually changed jackets between periods. Do they still have that show OilChange that followed the team around. Eakins would be must see TV in a bad reality show kind of way.

Teams are way too fast to rebuild in the NHL. A rebuild could mean 25 years of failure. It's never worth the risk. Keep your team, add some pieces, stay afloat, draft well and even a bad team can turn it around.

People often have different definitions of what a 'rebuild' is. Is it trading away your star player Is there a certain number of players you have to trade? I think most people see it as the unloading a good chunk of your top 6 forwards and top 2 D-men. Doing this all at once is pointless - why tank yourself for years to come? Rebuild as you replace (over time), like most teams do a la NJ.

In bolded: for me, the rebuild alarm goes off when a team bottoms out, Devils 2010-11-style, over the course of at least one full season (I say 'at least' because some teams might think a singular disastrous season might be a fluke), and the GM decides that he is no longer spending more money to augment a bad core that is either aging or simply run its course.

Clearly, the Devils are not in this kind of position (big difference between being 5 points out of a playoff spot, as opposed to 15+ and never being a factor), but you do wonder what this core is going to be going forward:

Schneider (if he re-signs, and we don't really know what kind of playoff goalie he is yet)

Zajac

Henrique

Clowe (due to contract)

Greene

Merrill

Gelinas

Larsson

A lot of guys who are here now won't be much longer (especially all of the 30-somethings), which is why I don't have them listed . Zids and Jagr could be gone this offseason. Elias has two years left after this one...maybe he re-signs after that...too soon to tell, impossible to predict the future of late 30-somethings. Zubrus also has two years after this one and is almost certain not to get re-signed. Won't surprise me if Lou tries to move him this offseason.

The big question is does this list look like the beginnings of a "you can build around this" kind of core. If all of the defenseman pan out (Greene has quietly become a nice reliable vet, which is why I have him on the core list...I get the feeling Lou will keep him here), then you can argue that it does. But some of the current forwards clearly have to go.

One thing to keep in mind: a LOT of the current contracts on the books come off within two years. This is good, in that it won't be as hard for Lou (or whomever) to change this team up as it sometimes feels:

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Firing Kreuger was fine - that team was not good and not going anywhere fast. The Oilers issue is that they don't have players who play defense and there's very little accountability for the young players. They've also signed some pretty bad veteran players over the years and retained others who were awful.

I have a baseball simulation game called Baseball Mogul - one of the interesting things it did is that if you didn't spend money on scouting, your players' ratings would be something like 70 (out of 100), +/- 6. This means that the player could be better or worse than your scouts think he is, but because your scouting stinks, you don't know (and since baseball stats are fickle like hockey ones, luck can be a large driver of single season performance). That's the problem the Oilers have had for years - they cannot accurately judge the ability of any of their players and consequently the rest of the league. They've got 2 defensemen - Petry, and Martin Marincin who looks like a Henrik Tallinder clone. It's just really hard to build a good team when that's the kind of thing you're working with.

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Firing Kreuger was fine - that team was not good and not going anywhere fast. The Oilers issue is that they don't have players who play defense and there's very little accountability for the young players. They've also signed some pretty bad veteran players over the years and retained others who were awful.

I have a baseball simulation game called Baseball Mogul - one of the interesting things it did is that if you didn't spend money on scouting, your players' ratings would be something like 70 (out of 100), +/- 6. This means that the player could be better or worse than your scouts think he is, but because your scouting stinks, you don't know (and since baseball stats are fickle like hockey ones, luck can be a large driver of single season performance). That's the problem the Oilers have had for years - they cannot accurately judge the ability of any of their players and consequently the rest of the league. They've got 2 defensemen - Petry, and Martin Marincin who looks like a Henrik Tallinder clone. It's just really hard to build a good team when that's the kind of thing you're working with.

Who have they passed up in the draft that would have made the team much better than it is? I mean, I'm sure there were those later round gems that they have never seemed to get. But ultimately, they've done pretty well with their first round picks, with perhaps the exception of Yakupov, who was still widely considered the best player in that draft. They also did pretty well by signing Schultz, and look to be addressing the defense finally with drafting Nurse, and probably taking Eklbad if he's available.

In the end, I think it just comes down to bad luck in not having those number 1 picks in years where there was a real stud talent. I guess you can say Hall has come pretty close to living up to the billing as a number 1 pick, but he's been hurt a lot.

That's of course, the problem with tearing it all down. Even if you end up taking the best player that is in fact available in a particular draft year, it's only as good as the draft class, which seems to fluctuate remarkably at the edges. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And most of the teams that successfully rebuild don't seem to do so based on any great scouting insight. At best, it just seems that you can avoid doing something very silly with your pick, like drafting Rick Dipietro.

Maybe Buffalo has it right in stock piling a ton of picks. If they get two relative diamonds in the rough with the picks they've traded for, in addition to the strong players that they should be getting by virtue of their own suckness, they might be in very good shape.